Monday, June 2, 2008

This is what I sent to CBS in response to this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr_kFIXL70wI am writing to express my disgust with the transphobic comments of David Letterman's list :top10 messages on the pregnant man's answering machine.It demonstrates ignorance to a revolting degree when such a powerful figure in media makes statements that incite hate on Mr. Beattie and transsexual and transgendered people. There are many of us out there who are discriminated against, physically endangered and tokenized in our everyday lives. Your television network, shows, writers etc have a chance to change things here and now by making transphobia an absolute unacceptable practice. I would expect that your show hold a matter of accountability when it comes to descrimination whether that be based on gender, sex, race, ethnicity, physical ability etc. Please consider the hate that you are broadcasting and the wide scale impact that it has on people - not only Mr. Beattie who has been specifically targetted, but all transsexual and transgendered people who have been made into a "freak show" by your programming. Which we are not, we are hard working people with the extra added challenge of a physical body that doesn't work to present our gender as easily as yours. Consider your priviledge and consider your impact. This is disgusting and I will not be watching your network and encouraging others to do the same until a public apology is made.

It's been a while, I know, a month, a busy month with little to no updates on here. I f ind when that expansive of a time period passes it can be hard to amass it into something tangible, but I will try to touch on the big important things.

First, Hoo-ha follow up:On the 11th of May we had our long awaited Hoo-Ha at Swans hotel. It was a gathering that I had spent months wondering if or how it might happen. Who would come, what they might have to share, and how it may change the course of events in the trans and related queer community in Victoria. I was pleasantly surprised with an attendance of 20 people, all ranging in backgrounds from long time activists and allies, to new fresh blood stoked to make big changes in the way we support one another. We had people representing advocacy groups such as UVIC Pride, PFLAG, AVI, and private activists, many with years invested in the betterment of transpeople's status and rights. We were able to put together a timeline of various projects we had worked on over the past 20 years, and compile an up to date resource list of what's happening now. From a group for transguys, to a trans archive in its early development at UVIC, we all have a lot going on, but it was clear to many of us that the lack of sense of unified community was a problem. The fact that there are still people who don't know of the resources that exist or how to access them is a problem, and the fact that many of us live this life alone, often with no sense of how many of us there are in this life together is a problem, both of them with visible solutions. Obviously these being big things can be very overwhelming. The ideas of how to organize a disconnected and often invisible community can be more than a small group in an afternoon could ever begin to handle, but we're taking the first baby steps of a community coming together. I'm sure that this afternoon will not be the last gathering of this group, and our friends, allies and others waiting in the wings, we're going places.

I however, have gone other places altogether. I have made the big move to Vancouver. I have started a new position in the field of AIDS prevention outreach work with youth, and am moving into a house this week with a number of straight men. I have never lived with straight men, with the exception of my own father and I really have no idea what to expect. I am also undergoing this move in a method I never would've considered doing. I am stealth, out as queer, but completely quiet thus far about my gender and my past. I have only met one of the boys so far, and intend to meet the rest of them and feel it out before I decide to maintain the stealth mission of passing in my own home, or out myself as a non-op transman to men who I assume have never questioned their gender, sexuality or considered gender and sexuality politics. I will for sure be following this progression online, as it is an exploration in my transitioned gender which I have yet to experience. I also am really looking forward to integrating myself in a broader queer community here in Vancouver, being that it is a larger place, and there are more queers of all genders, we'll see where it takes me.

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Ms.T.R. is:

I am a maker, a do-er, a creator, a writer, a storyteller, a player of games, a lover. I work in the magical spaces overlapping sex ed, technology education, theatre for living, bicycles and other such machines.